Maureen O’Hara, Actress of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Dies at 95

“I guess everybody was in love with Maureen O’Hara,” Clint Eastwood said of Maureen O’Hara at the 2014 Governors Awards. An Irish-born actress and one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1940s and 50s, Maureen O’Hara passed away today at the age of 95, per a [statement from her family] (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/actor-maureen-o-hara-dies-aged-95-1.2405089).

“Maureen was our loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend,” the statement read. “She passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family as they celebrated her life listening to music from her favorite movie, The Quiet Man.”

The Dublin-born O’Hara first broke into motion pictures in 1939, with roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn and as Esmerelda, opposite Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Over her celebrated career, O’Hara worked with the greats of her time, including John Ford (most notably on the 1941 Best Picture winner How Green Was My Valley) and John Wayne, with whom she made five films, including 1952’s The Quiet Man. She is, perhaps, most widely remembered for her roles in two family films, The Parent Trap and Miracle on 34th Street.

O’Hara’s last film performance was in 1991, in director Chris Columbus’ Only the Lonely, where she played John Candy’s overbearing Irish mother.

Last November, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [presented an honorary Oscar] (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/08/maureen-ohara-honorary-oscar) to Maureen O’Hara for her long and memorable career. Presenter Liam Neeson said of O’Hara, “For anyone anywhere around the world who loves movies, she is more than simply an Irish movie star, she is one of the true legends of cinema. A woman whose skill and range of talent is unsurpassed.”